Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito says he’s considering retirement and could give Trump another nomination

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Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito has revealed he plans to retire, potentially providing another nomination to President Donald Trump.

“It’s something that I think a person my age needs to think about every term,” the 76-year-old judge told CBS News in an excerpt of an interview that will air Monday.

“But I thought I could still make a valuable contribution, which is why I became a judge in the first place.”

There are already three Trump-appointed justices on the bench: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

The Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative lean would not change if Alito retires and Trump appoints a new justice. But Alito’s retirement would allow Trump to appoint a fourth justice to the court. Alito was nominated by President George W. Bush in the fall of 2005 and took his place on the bench in January 2006.

Trump has criticized the Supreme Court for several rulings against him on controversial issues such as his hardline tariff policies and his challenge to citizenship rights. Alito sided with Trump on both issues.

The timing of a Supreme Court justice’s retirement is crucial because the ruling party can change the political direction of the Court for decades.

Republicans blocked President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016 after the death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, more than 11 months before Trump’s inauguration. Trump then replaced Scalia with Gorsuch, who took office in April 2017.

Even though Trump has two more years in office, if Democrats take control of the Senate in November’s midterms, they could make it more difficult to confirm a potential Alito replacement.

“You decided not to retire this year despite, I think, some pretty intense pressure from Republicans who thought, ‘Well, Republicans control the Senate, so it would be easier to confirm your replacement,'” CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford said in her interview with Alito.

When then-Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo asked Trump in April about rumors of Alito’s resignation, the president responded, “It would be nice to say that now I have someone for 40 years,” but then praised the judge’s work.

“Justice Alito is an incredible judge and a brilliant judge — and he gets the country. He does what’s right for the country,” Trump said.

Alito said in his interview with CBS News that “it’s too difficult to predict how, for anyone, and especially when you reach a certain age, what your situation will be in a year, in two years and so on. And it’s too difficult to predict what the political situation will be and what a president might do in terms of replacing him.”